Novel Idea for Japan - Airport for Budget Travel

By HIROKO TABUCHI

MITO, JAPAN — The diktat from the governor was the kind of sweeping order that gives Japanese bureaucrats heart attacks: plans for a three-story airport terminal, painstakingly laid over years, were to be scrapped and replaced with a single-floor layout.

The New York Times

Trimmings would be pared to a minimum. Boarding bridges would be eliminated, with passengers told to board planes from the tarmac and even handle their own check-in luggage — an idea so blasphemous in service-conscious Japan that one local official said his “mind went blank” when he heard of the plan.

Ibaraki Airport, which opens Thursday about 85 kilometers, or 53 miles, north of Tokyo, is intended to be a completely new type of Japanese airport: a no-frills facility that could finally open up Japan’s expensive capital city to low-budget airlines.

Ignored by Japan’s big-league carriers, the little airport is up against all odds. It is the 98th airport in a country with a landmass smaller than California’s. Ibaraki Prefecture is devoid of tourist attractions, except for an ancient garden, known for its plum blossoms, and famous purveyors of natto, or pungent, fermented soy beans.

For now, Ibaraki will offer just two flights a day: one to Seoul by the South Korean carrier Asiana Airlines, and another to Kobe, a medium-size port city in western Japan, by the Japanese budget carrier SkyMark Airlines.

Even Japan’s transportation minister, Seiji Maehara, has been hard-pressed to muster much enthusiasm for the airport’s opening, despite its roughly ¥22 billion, or $243 million, in funding from local and national coffers. The news media have painted Ibaraki as just another money-losing airport, an example of the useless public works projects that dot Japan’s countryside.

“I’m not about to beg airlines from Japan and elsewhere to fly to Ibaraki,” Mr. Maehara said last week. “The prefecture needs to do what it can to make use of the airport.”

A closer look at Ibaraki, however, reveals a strategy that could jolt Japan’s long-stagnant aviation sector. Some experts say Ibaraki — with its explicit focus on cutting costs and budget carriers — could be just the kind of airport the country needs at a time when traffic demand is slumping, consumers are scrimping after a recession and airlines are being pressed to cut costs to the bone.

Some experts say low-cost air services have the best potential for growth, especially as incomes rise in big countries like China and India, bringing air travel to more people. Budget carriers have sprung up across the region, but Japan’s airline industry, dominated by giants Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airlines — and plagued by expensive and inefficient airports — has been largely left behind.

Experts say the greater Tokyo area, especially, could use another airport to handle flights by low-cost carriers, much like the Stansted or Luton airports outside London. The capital and its environs, the largest metropolitan sprawl in the world with a population of 40 million, are served by two airports, Narita — which handles most of the international traffic — and Haneda.

But capacity is notoriously tight, and that is expected to continue even after expansions at both airports in the next year. Strict regulations have stifled the flexible allocation of flights. Moreover, high landing and other costs put Narita and Haneda beyond the reach of low-cost carriers.

“Ibaraki is definitely on the right track,” said Ushio Chujo, a professor of transportation economics at Keio University in Tokyo.

“The airport’s success would hinge on whether more low-cost carriers will start up in Japan and in neighboring countries,” he said. “That could take 5 to 10 years, so Ibaraki will have to prepare for the long haul.”

In 2007, long after blueprints for an impressive terminal building at Ibaraki Airport were drawn up, and contractors hired, Ibaraki Prefecture’s governor, Masaru Hashimoto, called for building “an airport Japan had never seen before.”

“Just another standard airport wasn’t going to work. We’d be behind the times as soon as we opened,” Mr. Hashimoto said in an interview. “We needed to turn our thinking upside down.”

Mr. Hashimoto ordered a redesign of the terminal from scratch, brainstorming ways to cut operating costs, both for the airport and for carriers. He scrapped a plan to place arrivals, departures and a viewing deck on separate floors, instead putting everything on one level. That meant passengers could be served with fewer staff members.

Mr. Hashimoto got rid of boarding bridges, which are expensive for carriers to use, and for airports to maintain. Passengers instead will board from the tarmac. (“People will love it — they can pose for photos in front of the plane,” he said.)

He also wants passengers to carry their own check-in luggage to the plane, in a setup similar to some regional American airports — though he is still negotiating with officials on the point. (“We think that’s a bit too much,” one provincial official said on condition of anonymity, saying he was unauthorized to speak to the media.)

Planes landing at Ibaraki will taxi and park in a way that does not require the help of a tractor to push them back onto the runway before taking off — another reason passengers will board from the tarmac. That move, the first for an international airport in Japan, saves tractor usage fees for airlines and slashes maintenance costs for Ibaraki.

When officials protested that Japan’s finicky passengers would complain about the rain, Mr. Hashimoto and his aides offered this plan: give out free umbrellas on rainy days. (Japanese people love freebies, he said.) The governor is also pushing to accept private jets, as well as a helicopter link with downtown Tokyo, and is renting out extra space for parties and conventions.

Those efforts have paid off: Landing fees for a Boeing 737 on a scheduled flight at Ibaraki are about ¥89,000, two-thirds of Narita’s ¥139,600 fee and less than half of the ¥189,600 at Haneda, according to the industry publication Orient Aviation.

Other factors may work in Ibaraki’s favor: Its finances are not as dire as many of Japan’s other airports, in part because it was built as an extension of a military air base. And foreign carriers can serve regional airports without the bilateral agreements necessary for access to Haneda and Narita, making it easier to add routes. Asiana has had difficulty adding to the six routes it flies from Seoul to Narita and Haneda, for example.

Ibaraki offers unlimited free parking, while parking costs at Narita and Haneda are sky-high, and also plans to offer bus service from central Tokyo for 500 yen, or less than $5 — a fraction of the cost it takes to travel to Narita, and comparable to the cost of reaching Haneda.

Accounting for the time it takes for the plane to taxi on Narita’s runway and the passenger to make his way through that sprawling airport, the total journey to central Tokyo from Ibaraki is about the same — less than 90 minutes — according to Katsuichi Yabunaka, an Ibaraki official.

Meanwhile, the airport serves a big market in its own right: about 20 million people live within 100 kilometers of the new airport, according to Ibaraki Prefecture.

The airport faces plenty of headwinds. Haneda and Narita are planning extensions. Japan’s economy remains depressed. Foreign arrivals in Japan are also on the decline, though the trend could change with better access, particularly by budget carriers, experts say.

The airport is expected to lose ¥20 million in its first year of operation.

Still, Ibaraki is going on a sales offensive. The airline is in discussions with low-cost carriers in China, Malaysia, Philippines and Macao. Asiana, meanwhile, is studying an additional route to the South Korean port city of Busan.

“Ibaraki is the first airport in Japan to break the mold by really focusing on cost and efficiency,” said Dongshil Hyun, executive vice president at Asiana and head of the airline’s Japan operations.

“We finally have a much-needed new and cost-efficient route to Tokyo,” he said. “How could we not be excited?”

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